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Saturday, January 19, 2013

I'm a single mom. I have two sons that I homeschool,
along with working from home as a writer. When I'm not hanging out with my kids
or writing, I enjoy reading (any genre, as long as the writing is good),
listening to music (anything except rap), watching movies (some favorites are
Dirty Dancing, Riding in Cars with Boys, and Grease) and TV (2 Broke Girls, How
I Met Your Mother, Sons of Anarchy, Justified, Nashville), cooking, and baking.
During the summer, I like swimming, hiking, camping and even the occasional
fishing trip - though I don't bait my own hook, take my fish off the hook, or
clean my own catch. I love all the environments in the world, but the beach is
my favorite. I love dolphins - their physical beauty as well as their
incredible intelligence and their history with man.

Tell us about
your book.

Meadow’s marriage to Sander Hanson wasn’t the stuff of
fairy tales, but she didn’t think it was all that horrible. It's only after his
death that she finds out that he was keeping secrets. It starts with
unexplained credit card charges, and women’s names in a little black book. Then
there’s the secret bank account.

Stetson Christensen had been
in business with Sander for many years, but he’d stopped liking the man
personally a very long time ago. So when Meadow approaches him and asks for
help, he has no problem doing what she asked.

Time spent in close proximity
brings their long hidden desire for each other to the surface. Stetson doesn’t
want a relationship, and Meadow knows it’s not the right time for one. But they
can’t keep ignoring their attraction, and they can’t get away from each other.

Uncovering the dead man’s
secrets shows them a depravity that neither of them had realized existed. The
more they learn, the more they begin to realize they could be in serious
danger. They have to find all of Sander’s secrets in order to protect
themselves, and the only ones they can trust are each other.

Will they find everything
they need to know in time? Or will Meadow and her children pay for Sander’s
sins?

What inspired
you to write this book?

It's kind of hard to explain this
without giving too much away. I gave in to the Fifty Shades of Grey hype and
read the trilogy. The subject matter, the BDSM and the struggle to accept and
integrate it, was intriguing. And when I'd finished, I just kind of had the
thought "what if?" I learned from the book, and a few other books and
some research, that one of the core tenets of the BDSM lifestyle is consent -
everything is consensual. So my "what if" was along the lines of what
if someone wanted to ignore that tenet? How would they do it, why would they do
it, and what could happen as a result of it? Could things end well or was a
bad ending inevitable?

What do you
feel is your greatest accomplishment as a writer?

So far, I think my greatest
accomplishment is actually having people purchase my books. With the relatively
new ability to self publish our work, readers have a wealth of options when it
comes to choosing what to read. They can choose from the established,
traditionally published authors as well as those of us who are new to the scene
and doing it all ourselves. The fact that some of them choose me is a huge deal
to me. It excites me, and I also feel honored.

Who is your
favorite author and why?

My favorite author is a toss up
between Stephen King and Lisa Jackson. They both have such vivid imaginations,
incredible writing, and can draw me in with nothing more than a title. I love
Lisa's work for a good, realistic scare, and Stephen's for the real terror that
comes with books like "It."

Do you have any
suggestions for writers just starting out?

I can only think of two off the top
of my head.

1. Don't give up. Sometimes
you'll get halfway through and feel like your idea is fizzling. Or you'll write
your character into a corner and not know how to get him/her out of it. Maybe
your planned ending blows up and you aren't sure how to end it now. There are
so many things that will get in your way and have you thinking "Oh, crap,
I should just give up and stop/start over." Don't, though. Go back over
what you have. Sometimes just changing one sentence or even one word can be
enough to fix whatever problem you're having. And if you really think walking
away from it is best, then set it aside and start something new, but never,
ever throw away what you've got so far. You just might come back to it later
with fresh eyes and a fresh mind and discover that now you can write it to the
end.

2. Never stop reading. I know
for me as a writer, I can get so caught up in writing that I ignore the books
I'm reading, the shows I watch, etc. But those things, particularly the books,
can be such an enormous help to your writing. First of all, they can help show
you what to do - or not to do, as the case sometimes is. Reading a variety of
authors shows you their different writing styles, which can help you in finding
your own voice. It also helps you see the different ways to write descriptions,
dialogue, etc. Sometimes what works in one book doesn't work in another, and by
reading a variety of books, you might find that one that clicks and makes you
go "Aha! That's how I should write that scene so it works!" Second,
they can inspire your own ideas. Sometimes a word or a phrase will spark an
idea for you, other times an entire plot will motivate you to think "what
if?" and send you off on your journey to write out that "what
if" alternative. Plus, it's just nice to take a break from you own words
and read someone else's for a while.

What does
writing mean to you?

Writing means everything to me. It's my career, so it
means income and livelihood to me. It's my passion, so it means pleasure and
fun. It's an outlet for my creativity, so it means peace and contentment.

Writing is my chance to
escape the real world, with all it's problems, and live in a fantasy world for
a while. My worlds are no less problematic than the real world, but at least in
my worlds, I know that within a few hundred pages, the problems will be
resolved. Being in control of that resolution, as well as just the problems
themselves (knowing I can eliminate and change them as I see fit) gives me a
sense of peace, of power.